From left: Ted Arditti oowner of Regency House and Don Legnitto, who helps with the family business couldn't pin him down on title only gave me "helper", prepare for the Market at Regency House at the San Francisco Mart, Wholesale Home Furnishings Center, 1355 Market St. The mart's twice yearly show starts Friday. Lots of tension due to developers of a planned Las Vegas mart that would compete with San Francisco's. Threats to the mart's future could have widespread ramifications for San Francisco hotels and restaurants that benefit from thousands of furniture-mart visitors every year. PHOTO BY LEA SUZUKI/SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE less

From left: Ted Arditti oowner of Regency House and Don Legnitto, who helps with the family business couldn't pin him down on title only gave me "helper", prepare for the Market at Regency House at the San ... more

Photo: LEA SUZUKI

Photo: LEA SUZUKI

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From left: Ted Arditti oowner of Regency House and Don Legnitto, who helps with the family business couldn't pin him down on title only gave me "helper", prepare for the Market at Regency House at the San Francisco Mart, Wholesale Home Furnishings Center, 1355 Market St. The mart's twice yearly show starts Friday. Lots of tension due to developers of a planned Las Vegas mart that would compete with San Francisco's. Threats to the mart's future could have widespread ramifications for San Francisco hotels and restaurants that benefit from thousands of furniture-mart visitors every year. PHOTO BY LEA SUZUKI/SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE less

From left: Ted Arditti oowner of Regency House and Don Legnitto, who helps with the family business couldn't pin him down on title only gave me "helper", prepare for the Market at Regency House at the San ... more

Today when the San Francisco Mart kicks off its four-day, twice-yearly industry showcase featuring floor upon floor of desk lamps and imported leather chairs, some of the liveliest chatter among the bedposts won't be about Barcaloungers or hot ottoman designs.

There's more on tap at the 2002 Summer Market than of-the-moment cowhide area rugs and the latest sofa fashions. By many accounts, what's at stake for San Francisco is its status as the preeminent home-furnishings hub of the West Coast.

When hundreds of exhibitors and about 8,000 buyers and designers from all over the Western United States descend on the furniture mart and San Francisco Design Center for this weekend's showcase, the conversation is sure to include plans for a new, $1 billion furniture-and-design complex in downtown Las Vegas.

The Vegas project, as conceived, would dwarf the San Francisco Mart and, many say, ultimately threaten its future.

As the start of this week's San Francisco market approached, tenuous relations splintered between mart promoters in the rival cities after San Francisco show organizers told the Las Vegas developers to stay away from the show here.

Michael Gennet, president of San Francisco's 85-year-old mart -- which is located on Market Street at Ninth Street and is not open to the public -- has accused the Las Vegas development team of engaging in unprofessional methods to lure tenants away from San Francisco.

According to Gennet, leasing agents for the Las Vegas project have used San Francisco Mart showcases over the past two years to solicit business for the planned Vegas center.

Gennet said he could not allow such actions to continue. "This is more than a perceived threat. This is very real to us and to San Francisco. We were courteous in allowing their representatives (into past markets), either out of naivete or not fully realizing their intention, which is to destroy us and replace us. (Allowing them inside) is knowingly allowing a Trojan horse into the building."

The huge semi-annual San Francisco shows are a big draw for the city. Scheduled in January and July, each show typically attracts 8,000 to 10,000 buyers, pouring millions of dollars each year into the city's restaurants and hotels, according to organizers. The summer show is the smaller of the two.

And if there's ever a time when San Francisco needs all the visitors it can get, it's now -- in the post-Sept. 11 slump and with economic struggles keeping business travelers at home.

In late June, Gennet said, he told organizers of the Las Vegas development - - including two general partners, two leasing agents and the project's general manager -- that they would not be allowed into the San Francisco Mart for this week's show.

The mart management can refuse admittance to visitors who lack valid industry credentials, Gennet said. But this week, he softened that stance, telling the Vegas team members they could attend -- but only at times when they have appointments with exhibitors and only with a security escort.

In the chummy home-furnishings industry -- where competition is intense but generally amicable in a tight-knit network of buyers, retailers and designers who frequent large showcases in San Francisco, Tupelo, Miss., and High Point, N.C. -- Gennet's missive to his Las Vegas rivals was deemed highly unusual.

"There is intense bickering. A story about (a mart director) banning somebody from market just doesn't happen," said Clint Engel, senior retail editor of the trade publication Furniture Today.

"Las Vegas is one of the biggest topics in the industry right now," Engel said. "It's got people riled, both in High Point and in San Francisco. A lot of people think it's a threat to their existence."

Ivan Saul Cutler, a furnishings-industry analyst, marketer and a former vice president of the San Francisco Mart in the late 1970s, said San Francisco does, in fact, need to worry. He points to the list of 200 companies that Las Vegas developers said have signed leases to occupy their planned World Market Center before a shovel even hits the desert dirt. About half of the commitments are from companies that occupy the San Francisco Mart temporarily for the big shows or do business at the mart year-round.

"Best I can tell, Las Vegas is mounting an insurgency," Cutler said, adding that a critical mass of wholesale furnishings companies appears willing to pay more rent for showplace space in Vegas than they now pay in San Francisco. "If the buyers are there, then they'll justify it."

The Vegas site sits on 57 acres near downtown where Interstates 15 and 95 intersect. The first phase calls for a 10-story high-rise with 1.25 million square feet of permanent and temporary showroom space. Eventually, developers plan to expand the complex to 7.5 million square feet.

Members of the Las Vegas contingent said they'll go along with Gennet's rules at the San Francisco show beginning today -- but they still intend to speak to exhibitors here in an attempt to sign more leases before breaking ground later this year or in early 2003.

The Vegas center, like the San Francisco Mart, would host two large-scale markets a year, possibly at the same time as San Francisco's shows, said Shawn Samson, a general partner and investor in the Vegas project.

His team doesn't have building permits yet, but funding is in place through private investors, Samson said, adding, "Nothing will stop the project at this point."

Samson acknowledges that while his team is not purposely trying to put the San Francisco Mart out of business, that's the likely scenario if the Vegas project succeeds.

"I believe both the San Francisco Mart and ourselves have said there is room only for one," he said.

Exhibitors at this week's show are split on the significance of the Las Vegas plans. Some said the project is just a dream in the desert; others have signed leases in a still-nonexistent building out of fear of losing out on a spot in the future when space won't be available.

"To a certain degree, I'm hedging my bet, saying that I don't know what's going to happen in San Francisco," said Tim Sopp, president of Oak Tree Furniture Inc., a Southern California furniture manufacturer and wholesaler.